Typhoon Bopha ploughed across the major southern island of Mindanao on Tuesday, flattening nearly everything across its 700-kilometre wide path with a blend of hurricane-force winds, floods and landslides.

The Philippine president, Benigno Aquino, has visited the southern island of Mindanao which bore the brunt of Typhoon Bopha to meet survivors who must now rebuild their lives.

In a surprising development on Friday, Bopha regained strength and threatened to bring flooding into parts of northern Luzon over the weekend.

Hundreds of thousands of survivors of the deadly typhoon gathered on Friday into overcrowded shelters, braving the stench of corpses as the government vowed action to prevent storm disasters.

Bopha, which smashed into the nation's south on Tuesday leaving at least 420 people dead and 383 missing, was the deadliest natural disaster this year in a country that is regularly hit with quakes, floods and volcanic eruptions.

UN asks for $65m for victims of Typhoon Bopha, as death toll rises to nearly 650.

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At least 650 people have died, while millions are left homeless and in desperate need of food aid and other basic goods, the country's disaster chief in Manila told Al Jazeera.
Bopha in numbers:
People affected: 5.4million